Carbon Management Allianz wants to help shape the topic of CCS/U
The newly established association aims to promote the development and implementation of CCS/CCU technologies in Germany through cross-industry collaboration.
Of the European countries, Germany is currently the only one without a legal framework for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon utilization (CCU). Although the parliamentary steps for the Carbon Dioxide Storage and Transportation Law (KStTG) are almost complete, the current government situation and the early election next February are causing delays and uncertainties in the adoption of the law. This is dampening the investment climate for this technology. With the recently established Carbon Management Alliance (CMA), companies in the cement, lime, energy, transport and waste management industries are now pursuing the goal of developing the capture, storage and processing of CO2 across sectors and helping to shape the necessary framework conditions.
Companies in the cement and lime industry and in waste management will not be able to achieve climate neutrality simply by switching to sustainable fuels and implementing more efficient processes. This is because the raw materials used in these industries are responsible for the majority of the CO2 emissions generated in the production process.
“Germany is in danger of falling behind. A further delay clearly calls into question planned investments. If we want to scale technologies in the short term, companies need planning and investment security today,” commented Alexandra Decker, Chairwoman of the CMA and Board Member for Corporate Affairs at CEMEX Germany, one of the ten largest cement manufacturers in the world.
The cement industry must have implemented decarbonization by 2039 at the latest. The technology is available, and in the Rüdersdorf plant near Berlin, CCS technology is currently being implemented in a project with EU funding. “In 2030, we want to produce climate-neutral cement there.” But what is needed here is a long-term perspective for the cement and lime industry for a CCS economy. “To achieve this, the regulatory framework urgently needs to be completed,” says Decker.
Keeping costs as low as possible
She also advocates keeping CCS costs as low as possible. “The calculation is simple: the shorter the distances, the lower the operating costs.” The legal basis for the export of CO2 also needs to be established. “This must be one of the first official acts of the new government,” says Decker. In order to keep costs for companies in check, these would have to be flanked by climate protection contracts on a transitional basis, because as long as the CO2 price is not sufficiently high and as long as there are no reliable sales markets, the pioneering products are simply not competitive.
Two-thirds of the emissions from lime production are unavoidable because they come from the limestone itself, explained Philip Nuyken, managing director of the German Lime Industry Association. To make this industry climate-neutral, the CO2 must be captured, transported, used or stored. The present draft of the KSpTG would enable investments in the country and in long-term, urgently needed climate protection – and would cost the state nothing. It should be implemented quickly. Without the law, entire industries would be excluded from a transformation.
There has also been a change of perspective on CCS among nature conservation organizations. Steffi Ober, head of the economics and research policy department at the nature conservation organization Nabu, sees the storage of carbon dioxide as a way of protecting biodiversity. She believes that natural sinks can be improved by technical sinks. “We have to invest in infrastructure for carbon capture and storage so that industry in Germany has enough time for the necessary transformation.”
She emphasized that the technical sinks should be implemented at the lowest possible cost and, in addition to offshore storage, did not rule out onshore storage. In general, however, she believes that a monitoring process involving civil society would be useful for the topic of CCS/U. However, she emphasized that CCS should only be used in a very limited way in the cement, lime and waste management industries, otherwise there would be a risk of sliding into lock-in effects.
The members of the alliance are the companies Cemex, EEW, Harbour Energy, TES, VTG, Total Energies, OMV, Lhoist and Verbio.
